Download Paper presented at the symposium Cultural

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Paper presented at the symposium Cultural Diversity and the Construction of Europe,
Barcelona 13-16 December 2000
CULTURE vs. CULTURES
An irreverent approach to conceiving and working with diversity
Jef Verschueren
IPrA Research Center, University of Antwerp
1. Diversity and Europe
Different as it may be from other continents in a number of ways, when human diversity is at
issue – at least at a fundamental level – there is nothing special about Europe. The diversity it
manifests is considerable, but not more impressive than in any other part of the world.
Looking at one of the parameters that touch every individual’s life, a rough and approximate
geographical mapping of the world’s living languages in the 1980's located only 3% in
Europe, compared to 15% in the Americas, 20% in the Pacific, 30% in Asia, and 31% in
Africa (the remaining 1% being found in the Middle East)1. Parameters at the more elitist
levels of culture, say architecture and forms of art, show diversity in Europe (as elsewhere)
that is located more along a temporal axis than along the lines of geography, states, or ethnic
groups – a type of globalization avant la lettre at the level of one continent. Just like
elsewhere, moreover, the face of diversity changes over time, partly due to local political
processes (aimed at the reinforcement or the elimination of types of difference), and partly
due to processes such as migration which are truly universal though the resulting patterns are
dependent on circumstantial factors such as the degree of openness of borders and the
1
See B.F. Grimes ed. (1988). One of the reasons why this is only an approximation is that a number of
languages (such as English, French, Spanish, Arabic, and the like) have groups of native speakers on different
continents. Another reason is that only ‘autochthonous’ populations are counted and that this notion is
necessarily indeterminate and susceptible to variation over time. Yet another is the indeterminacy of boundaries
between languages. None of these, however, can reverse the conclusion that in terms of language, taking into
account population figures, Europe seems to be the least diversified continent.
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availability of modern means of transportation (as is well illustrated in R. Grillo’s discussion
of transmigration2).
In other words, the tasks involved in the construction of Europe are by no means
unique. If unity and diversity are not incompatible in India (or, for that matter, in the USA – a
country that is too often misconceived by Europeans as a monolythic block), there is no
reason to expect incompatibility in Europe. Nor can Europe, per se, provide an exemplary
way of incorporating diversity into a larger framework. It has been done before, at many
times and in many places. Yet the ‘construction of Europe’ is often seen as by definition
problematic because of cultural diversity. Therefore, there must be something in the
European conception of diversity that makes the construction of Europe problematic. And
therefore it remains useful to ask explicit questions about the tensions that are inevitably
involved when, in the late 20th and in the early 21st century in a European context with
multiple well-established states, a drive for unification meets wishes for the preservation of
identities, many of which entail demands that are now recognized, to varying degrees, as
legitimate. Such questions have to be asked comparatively to avoid what can be observed as
mistakes elsewhere (e.g. the English-only movement in the USA). They also have to be asked
in relation to widespread ideologies which partly determine the constraints within which
political processes of unification can unfold democratically, i.e. subject to the scrutiny of
public opinion. My focus in this contribution will especially take this latter angle. More
specifically, I will start from some well-researched ideas surrounding the management of
‘new’ forms of diversity resulting from migrations. The stumbling blocks for interaction
between European majorities and the new minorities, however, will be shown to have
implications for the future construction of Europe as a political entity trying to incorporate
cultural diversity.
2. Socio-political options: The case of ‘new’ minorities
Reference is to Ralph Grillo’s contribution to the conference session for which this paper was written,
“Transmigration and cultural diversity in the construction of Europe.” See also Grillo, Riccio & Salih (2000).
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The socio-political options available in Europe today are – fortunately – limited. Both in
relation to autochthonous diversity and in relation to diversity resulting from migrations
inside Europe and from the outside, segregation is no longer an option, even if until the early
1970's some café’s in a city such as Antwerp posted signs saying “Interdit aux
nord-africains.” Similarly, assimilation has lost its respectability, probably because many
Europeans have come to realize that differences cannot be fully eliminated anyway –
pre-WWII German Jews, after all, did not find protection in the fact that many were more
German than the Germans. The halfway house of integration has come to replace both,
incorporating the needs of a coherent society as well as the right to be different. But this is
what happens at the surface of the rhetoric, where tolerance and openness are the prevailing
virtues.
Why do I say ‘at the surface of the rhetoric’? This qualification summarizes the result
of an investigation which I undertook with Jan Blommaert (reported in Blommaert &
Verschueren 1998) to discover the extent to which non-superficial forms of diversity (i.e.
beyond relatively trivial aspects such as cuisine and dressing codes) are accepted in that
segment of Belgian (and more specifically Flemish) society that can be characterized as the
‘tolerant majority.’ Mainstream discourse of various types (including news reporting, policy
statements, training programs, and popularized social-scientific research reports) was
analyzed, paying attention not only to the overt expression of opinions but in particular to
more implicit levels of meaning generation, as revealed in patterns of word choice,
implication- and presupposition-carrying constructions, the interaction between different
points of view, and patterns of argument construction. Though tolerance was explicitly
professed throughout, at the level of implicit meaning the ingredients of an equally consistent
underlying ideology could be detected that we labelled ‘homogeneism.’ The basic ingredients
of homogeneism (Flemish style, in the 1990's) are the following:
(i) Homogeneity is seen as the norm or ideal for a society.
(ii) Hence, fundamental forms of diversity are regarded as deviations from the
norm; in other words, they are abnormal.
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(iii) Since diversity is a deviation, negative reactions to diversity (once a
so-called ‘threshold of tolerance’ is passed) are normal.
(iv) Since neither deviations from the norm of homogeneity, nor negative
xenophobic or racist reactions (however ‘normal’), are desirable, some form of
rehomogenization is required. But in order to preserve the self-perception of a
tolerant society, the acceptance of differences is said to be fully compatible
with demands for ‘integration’, even though this term is used in a way barely
distinguishable from strong versions of full assimilationism.
Indeed, the prevailing rhetoric on integration is highly assimilationistic. The integration
concept hinges on a threefold distinction between levels of social action and principles
governing social behavior: (i) values and principles protected by the concept of 'public order';
(ii) guiding social principles about which an autochthonous majority seems to agree
implicitly; (iii) the level of the many cultural expressions which threaten neither the public
order nor the social principles of the host country.While (i) relates to the law, (ii) bears on a
vague set of attitudes related to aspects of modernity, women's emancipation, a pluralist
respect for all world views, and language. Migrants have to obey the law and adapt to our
guiding social principles, as we understand them. The only locus of tolerated difference is
(iii), the domain of art and music, folk dance, cuisine, home language (as long it does not
penetrate public life), and religion (as long as it is not 'fundamentalist'). For the tolerant
majority, which basically believes in the salutary nature of a serious degree of homogeneity,
this represents an open attitude. However, this integration concept is discriminatory and
repressive in various ways.
First, it discriminates because of its asymmetrical use of the notion of 'identity.' Not
only are migrants requested to live according to the local law (a quite acceptable demand as
long as one does not see the law as a natural fact but as an adaptable construct), but they have
to adapt to the values and socio-cultural accomplishments of our society. This demand is
motivated on the basis of the idea that these values and accomplishments are so fundamental
to our identity that we cannot accept their being questioned by people in our midst who
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would not share them. It is assumed that by accepting deviations from our "guiding social
principles," however vaguely defined, we would become the victims of our own tolerance:
the foundations of our society would be at risk. This is why the 'threat' to society, as a
motivation for the demand, is indirectly introduced in the formulation of (iii). On the other
hand, the tolerant discourse emphasizes that we do by no means want to curtail the others'
identity. But in that claim, 'identity' is restricted to those domains of social action which, in
the definition of our own identity, we would accord a marginal role at best. This asymmetric
use of identity deculturalizes the migrant to the point of assimilation (though this will not
prevent the majority from culturalizing any social problems that may involve migrants).
The formulated package of demands is also discriminatory in the sense that only one
(albeit poorly defined) population group, consisting mainly of muslims from North Africa
and Turkey, is subjected to it. In spite of explicit claims to the contrary, not everyone is equal
for the integration concept. Muslims are not regarded as fully acceptable members of this
society unless they accept the principle of equality between men and women, as we
understand it; but no-one asks the question as to how many Belgians would have to be denied
full membership of the society on the same count. Similarly, islamic schools are discouraged
because they are seen as a danger to the integration process; but no-one asks any questions
about the well-developed Jewish schooling system (or, a fortiori, about the vast network of
Catholic schools).
Thus the autochthonous majority imposes integration on one (partly imaginary)
minority group. This does not only happen without serious democratic involvement of this
minority itself (the existence of which, for the sake of argumentation, we will not call into
doubt), but the package of demands remains extremely vague. What happens, then, is the
following: we impose demands unilaterally; we refrain from specifying the demands clearly
enough so that migrants would be able to declare themselves 'integrated' at a certain moment;
yet we hold them responsible for the integration process ("He/she must integrate
him/herself"). If it were the intention to develop a concept that would enable us to exert
ever-lasting power over a segment of the population, we could not dream of a better one. That
is why the dominant integration concept is not only discriminatory but even repressive, a
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judgment which does not necessarily bear on intentions, but simply on the essence of the
concept.
All of this must be seen against the background of the specific Belgian history of
confrontation with diversity. When my 88-year-old mother, like so many people of her
generation, listened to the visiting missionary in her little village dishing out stories
about deprived and uncivilized blacks in some faraway country in Africa, in need of
soul-saving and salvation, she definitely had a close encounter of the first kind. The
second kind set in when she saw a black man on the other side of the street in
Antwerp, who might have been one of the characters from the missionary’s stories.
But probably she never reached the third kind, a face-to-face close encounter with
such an alien being. She may even have dreaded the idea. Otherwise she would not
have commented, upon hearing that my son went to a daycare place in America run
by a black mama from Alabama, that he surely must be a brave little fellow. Many of
her contemporaries, in urban and industrial areas, did have close encounters of the
third kind. They were confronted, in the performance of their daily duties, with guest
workers from Italy, Spain, Morocco, and Turkey. This was experienced as interesting
by the adventurous, and as disturbing to various degrees by others. Interactions
were smooth on some occasions, and more ruffled on others. But at the societal
level, all these types of encounters – also the third – resulted from movements and
interactions for which Belgium fully controlled the initiative and thus could dictate the
terms. Much of what has been problematic in interethnic relations in the last few
decades in Belgium, and particularly in Flanders, is mainstream society’s
unwillingness to abandon full control and to accept that the initiative is no longer
exclusively its own. In other words, the society has shown itself to be unprepared for
close encounters of the fourth kind, the stage that sets in when so-called ‘foreigners’,
by simply being there to stay (or with aspirations to stay), become part of the society
as a whole, enter processes far beyond the functional limits originally defined for
them, share a common territory with the majority population, rely on the same
services, and ultimately refuse to be ignored.
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An unwillingness or inability to abandon full control has direct consequences in many
domains of social life since it involves mundane processes of conceptualizing ‘others’ that
determine the way in which diversity is conceived and worked with. Thus the daily praxis of
intercultural interaction can be profoundly affected by stereotyped and homogenized
categorizations of people.3 That is why the case of the ‘new’ diversity which this section has
concentrated on can be seen as typical of and instructive for life with diversity in Europe in
general. For one thing, the link with local nationalisms, which affect relations between
autochthonous groups as well, should be clear. Moreover, the future of Europe is imagined to
be one of free movement across borders, resulting in an intensified context of close
encounters of the fourth kind. Whenever local communities regard themselves as more equal
than others entering their territory, or, for that matter, whenever they display hospitality from
a position that presupposes the legitimacy of their original and ultimate control, problems are
bound to arise.
Before going into specific implications, requiring fundamental reconceptualizations of
diversity, a few remarks need to be made on the notion of culture.
3. Remarks on the notion of culture
As was already demonstrated in the above description of a widespread Flemish integration
concept, the everyday notion of ‘culture’ is a vague conglomeration of miscellaneous
properties, at different levels of ‘depth’, observed in or ascribed to groups of people: beliefs
and values, types of behavior, habits of dressing, eating, and the like, religion, language,
aspects of social structure (e..g. position of men vs. women). All of these are acquired
through ‘learning’, passed on by tradition, though a link is often assumed with the equally
vague but seemingly inalienable properties of ethnicity.
In contrast to the vagueness of the notion and the fact that learning is involved,
3
For an example of how, for instance, a social worker fails to understand the specificity of a young Turkish
woman’s problems as a result of a perception in terms of cultural stereotypes, see Verschueren (2001); the
example is borrowed from Bulcaen & Blommaert (1999).
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culture is often seen as being the undetachable, deep-seated, essence of a group of people:
this is called essentialism. This position often goes together with the metaphor of (cultural)
‘roots’, and it often underlies assumptions of territoriality (and hence even forms of
nationalism).
There are two (basically equivalent) ways of describing the fundamental problem with
essentialism. First, it confuses culture with nature. Second, it places clusters of cultural traits
at the level of groups. Thus the nature of a group is thought to be defined by a given culture.
This attitude disregards the arbitrariness with which cultural traits can be handled to
emphasize or blur distinctions between groups of people, depending on the historical context,
and in function of specific (usually political) goals.
Group formation is a natural and universal phenomenon in social life. Hence it is
inevitable that coping with diversity and conceiving ‘others’ should involve thinking in terms
of groups. In other words, the categorization of people is involved, and categories receive a
form of stability and homogeneity in the mind.Unfortunately, categorization and the related
form of homogenization can easily lead to stereotyping and prejudice, and hence to racism,
discrimination, and exclusion. It is very important, therefore, to be clear about the precise
status of ‘groups’ in social life.
Though group formation is a natural process, the resulting groups are not natural
entities in any sense (though it is an assumption of naturalnesss that underscores the
importance attached to ‘identity’). Groups are always products of arbitrarily used
constellations of distinctive features. Not a single parameter of variability is used consistently
across time and space. Thus discourse about ethnic identity used to include references to race.
It is now generally agreed, however, that ‘race’ is not a useful biological category. This
general observation about the differences between the way in which race used to be handled
and the way in which it is now being handled, shows that even seemingly unmistakable
physical properties can be in the first place culturally defined, awareness of them being
learned in the same way as any other cultural phenomena. A more specific observation about
race could be, for instance: why did the American one-drop rule determine that someone was
black as soon as it could be shown that he or she had any black blood in his or her line of
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descent at all, rather than to determine whiteness in the same way? Or consider religion: in
what is now Belgium, the community-forming religious deviding line has shifted in a few
centuries from Catholic vs. non-Catholic, to religious (by definition Christian) vs.
non-religious, to Christian (by cultural ‘heritage’ if not practising) vs. Muslim. Or language:
why are Flemish Dutch and Dutch Dutch predominantly conceived as variants of one
language, whereas Serbian and Croation are now viewed as two different languages (though
the differences in both cases are strikingly similar in both degree and type, grounded in
similar historical conditions, and correlated with other distinctions such as a religious
divide)? The conclusion can only be that very little remains in the cultural chracatreization of
groups that could at all be claimed to be ‘objective’.
If human groups cannot be seen as natural entities defined by clusters of cultural
characteristics, neither are they strictly separable, nor stable. Objections to this view are often
voiced in terms of some desperate questions: Why all this condescension towards
essentialism? Can one really maintain that nothing at all is essential? The answer is simple.
Of course, many things are absolutely essential – in every society, at all times, at all places.
The point is that what is essential changes on the basis of what (some) people (usually the
powerful), in a given society, at a given time, at a given place, decide to treat as essential.
Whoever does not accept this type of relativity is an essentialist. Cultural traits are not
‘rooted’ in groups. More often than not, they are the subject of various forms of strife. Even
the content of fundamental cultural principles such as ‘respect for life’, which seem to be
unversally accepted within a given society can take such different shapes for diffenet
members that for some all killing is condemned, while others have no qualms about abortion,
euthanasia, or the death penalty (three exceptions that would not necessarily be allowed by
the same people).
A number of interrelated recipes can be formulated for an alternative view of culture
that may match its real-world functioning more closely. First of all, culture should always be
vieweed in terms of continuity and change. As Tomassello (1999) points out with much
emphasis, culture is about passing on and preserving, but as much about change and growth;
hence his notion of ‘cumulative cultural learning’. Or to use Bauman’s words:
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“‘Culture’ is as much about inventing as it is about preserving; about discontinuity as
much as about continuation; about novelty as much as about tradition; about routine
as much as about pattern-breaking; about norm-following as much as about the
transcendence of norm; about the unique as much as about the regular; about change
as much as about monotony of reproduction; about the unexpected as much as about
the predictable.” (1999: p. xiv)
Second, the plural form cultures should be avoided. There are cultural differences and
contrasts (which, when in contact, are often responsible for change) but these do not amount
to clusters of features that are identifiable, let alone separable, coherent entities. Though
culture is a universal human phenomenon (related to a unique cognitive development4),
cultures do not exist in any real sense of ‘existence’.
These recipes are the basic ingredients of an approach to diversity which requires
some far-ranging reconceptualizations which I will spell out next. It is only through such
reconceptualizations that it will become possible to take diversity really seriously.
4. Reconceptualizing diversity
Within Europe, as elsewhere, the prototypical examples of non-acceptance of diversity are to
be found in the rhetoric of the extreme right. This rhetoric, however, has shifted significantly
in recent years. Racist thinking is no longer anchored in the concept of ‘race.’ As was already
pointed out, under the influence of biology, and aided by some common sense, most people
have become convinced that races and racial purity do not exist, except as mental constructs.
Present-day racists know that too. In order to legitimate continued separate treatment of
‘one’s own people,’ then, it was necessary to look for a new conceptual framework as an
argumentative resource. In this process, the concept of ‘race’ was almost completely replaced
4
See M. Tomasello (1999) for the relationships between the development of human cognitive capabilities and
human culture.
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by ‘culture.’ Culture is then regarded, in the essentialist vein that we have already explored,
as an untouchable cluster of properties, essentially linked with the identity of a population
group, often rooted territorially. Foreign cultural elements, so the culture-based racist story
goes, threaten the identity of a people, form a true danger and have to be contained, either by
means of elimination or by means of assimilation.
Recently5 the argument has been made – focuing on the Flemish context again – that,
in order to fight this new variant of racism, the democratic parties have to start “taking
culture seriously.” Otherwise the extreme right would get a monopoly over cultural themes.
This does not mean, the argument continues, that ‘Flemish culture’ suddenly has to appear on
the political agenda – because that is a fiction too. But to oppose cultural fundamentalism, a
form of ‘cultural federalism’ would have to be promoted: as a result of the globalisation of
cultural factors, “there is no longer a link between territory and culture,” and “the essence of
cultural federalism would be to detach culture from regions.” By eliminating territoriality
from the concept of culture, the argument concludes, the extreme right loses its main
foundation. After all, without realizing this themselves, “people all over Europe are members
of the same group.”
As so often in the fight against the extreme right, such a line of argumentaton does not
touch the premisses of the discourse. It is not enough to eliminate territoriality from the
notion of culture. By positing that “there is no longer a link between territory and culture,”
one implies that there used to be such a link. Also that is a fiction. Societal homogeneity has
been the exception throughout history.6 Launching the term ‘cultural federalism’, analogous
to political federalism in which a whole delegates power to constituent parts, thus implies that
also non-territorially based cultures form bounded and identifiable entities. Without this
implication it does not make much sense to demand that “culture should be taken seriously.”
In a Belgian context, this demand cannot bear on specific cultural factors (such as religion)
5
I am referring specifically to arguments made by the cultural anthropologist Rik Pinxten during a symposium
on racism in the 21st century (Ghent, April 2000), as reported in De Morgen (14 April, Aula p. 27).
6
For a comparative description of some examples of ethnically heterogeneous societies over a long period of
history, see e.g. Grillo (2000).
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that the democratic parties would have to start reckoning with politically. They have always
done so, to the extent that the entire society is organized and structured along such lines.
Finally, by defining ‘people all over Europe’ as ‘members of the same group,’ it is clearly
implied that there is such a thing as European culture – culture tied up with a political
structure and hence paradoxically again with a territory (which is often explicitly contrasted
with America, a cultural-political entity which is held responsible for what is called the
‘americanization’ of our society).
It is not enough to separate culture from territoriality. It is the highest time to give
‘culture’ the ‘race’ treatment. Just as there are no clearly separable races, there are no
clearly separable cultures. Only this observation can take away the foundations of the new
racism. In other words, we have to stop – rather than to start – taking culture too seriously,
because only then will it be possible to escape from the homogenizing ways of thinking that
are at the basis of all principles of discrimination and exclusion, and only then will it be
possible to fully recognize every individual’s right to his or her own cultural life within the
wide margins of general ethical principles.
Taking into account what we have said about the naturalness of processes of
group-formation vs. the non-naturalness or arbitrary nature of the resulting groups, the
somewhat irreverent reconceptualization of diversity that seems to be required places the
locus of diversity with the individual. Working with diversity, therefore, requires policies that
focus on parameters of variability rather than on groups, recognizing that every individual
belongs to many different groups at the same time depending on the dimension one looks at:
gender, age, family situation, language, sexual preference, profession, descent, ethnicity, etc.
Needless to say that, in view of the deeply engrained common ideologies in relation to
diversity, as revealed in the study of the Belgian migrant debate (see section 2.) and as
manifested in instances of intercultural interaction (see Verschueren 2001a) such a
reconceptualization requires a massive educational task – a task one cannot embark on
without political goodwill.
In order to avoid misunderstandings, it is important to point out that there is a
complex relationship between the self, notions of identity, and the group. Some salient
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aspects of this relationship are the following
First, claims about the differential position of the ‘self’ in different cultures (in terms
of egocentric vs. sociocentric cultures) often confuse individuality with individualism.
Moreover, they tend to be formulated one-sidedly as one aspect of a largely constructed or
imagined us/them contrast. This is well-argued by Cohen (1994) who shows how many
anthropologists have been inclined “to deny to cultural ‘others’ the self consciousness which
we so value in ourselves” (p. 5) in an attempt to generalize over societies from data basically
collected from individuals. He adds that there is no contradiction between the often observed
importance of collectivity and a strong sense of individual self, since
“The salient point for us to note is that the aspiration to ‘sameness’or to ‘normalcy’
must proceed from the awareness of difference, of distinctiveness.” (p. 66)
Moreover, with reference to mass movements as typical examples in which collectivity
prevails:
“The mere existence of a plausible structure for the expression of a grievance or for
the mobilisation of a mass following might be sufficient to persuade people with very
different kinds of motivation to gather behind its banner. In other words, the
explanation of collective behaviour is to be sought among its individual participants.”
(p. 148)
Similarly, the opposition between the self and the group is a false one. Just as social
structures and dynamics are processed by individual minds, many seemingly individual
processes require a social level of ‘distributed cognition’ in order to ‘work’. And just as
social/cultural functioning underlies individual cognitive development, no social/cultural
phenomena can be understood without an appeal to cognition. Any position that focuses
exclusively on the self or on the group ignores the fundamental dynamics involved.
Furthermore, the fact that individuals have multiple identities does not mean that all
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identities are equally salient at all times. More often than not, social relations are determined
by a one-dimensional tuning in to one type of identity, even if it is one (e.g. a ‘racial’
identity) the reality and importance of which would be denied explicitly.7 Also, different
contexts appeal to different identities, so that an individual’s identities are often in conflict
with each other. The false impression of monolythic identity arises when an overall
dominance of certain contexts emerges.
5. Diversity and Europe – ground rules for dialogue
A widening Europe is caught in paradoxes. One paradox is that the wider Europe becomes,
the more diversity it will show and the less practicable will be the classical tools for dealing
with this (such as the use of the official languages of the member states). Another involves
the discrepancy between the role of some regional forces that see in Europe the space in
which to escape from a local minority position but that are so nationalistic in character that
they form the main stumbling blocks for confronting non-autochthonous forms of diversity.
Further, Europe may be the main opponent of intolerance, but it lives by the grace of political
compromises that are more and more inspired by moves to the right.
In such a context, locating diversity with the individual may not only be the most
logical alternative but even the only practical one. Politics, however, is essentially interaction
between groups of people. Within the reconceptualized paradigm of diversity, and within the
reality of politics, the most basic ground rule for dialogue seems to be that whatever group
identifies itself as a group should be accepted as an actor in the political process, with the
right to be heard in relation to any form of social or political action to which the parameters
that define the group are relevant. That is why ‘multiculturalism’ – if we want to use that
term – cannot be equated with ‘dealing with minorities’. As Parekh (2000) says (in a
terminology that, unfortunately, over-reifies ‘culture’):
7
An example is analyzed in Veerschueren (2001b).
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“Multiculturalism is about the proper terms of relationship between different cultural
communities. The norms governing their respective claims, including the principles of
justice, cannot be derived from one culture alone but through an open and equal
dialogue between them.” (p. 13)
Therefore, no-one should have the right to impose norms beyond the law on any group,
whether identified by a ruling majority or self-identified. Thinking through the logical
consequences of such basic rules would reveal that they are massively violated in most EU
member states. It would also reveal that numerous political compromises would have to be
rethought carefully – something which I don’t doubt other contributions to this volume will
be doing in detail.
References
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Bulcaen, Chris & Jan Blommaert (1999) De constructie van ‘klassieke gevallen’:
Case management in de interculturele hulpverlening. In Folke Glastra (ed.)
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intercultureel management. Utrecht: Lemma, 139-158.
Cohen, Anthony P. (1994) Self Consciousness: An Alternative Anthropology of Identity.
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23(6): 957-981.
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Grillo, Ralph, Bruno Riccio & Ruba Salih (2000) Here or There? Contrasting Experiences of
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